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Vllasi was born in Robovac, Kosovska Kamenica, Yugoslavia, in today's Kosovo[a].
In his youth and student years, Vllasi chaired a number of youth organizations: the student league of Kosovo and of Yugoslavia, and from 1974, the League of Socialist Youth of Yugoslavia. As socialist youth chairman, he became popular and gained the support of President Tito, which helped him to become the first re-elected youth leader. After graduation, he became a lawyer before joining big politics. In 1980, he publicly challenged the autocratic ruler of Albania, Enver Hoxha,[1] claiming that ethnic Albanians in Yugoslavia were better off than people in Albania and describing his rule as brutal and dictatorial. Azem Vllasi was a Chevening Scholarship holder in early 1970s and studied at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. [2]

A partial state of emergency in Kosovo was declared on February 27, 1989, and the newly appointed leaders resigned on February 28. Soon thereafter, Kosovo's legislature, under a threat of force authorised by the federal presidency, acquiesced and passed the amendments allowing Serbia to assert its authority over Kosovo. Vllasi was arrested by the police on the charges of "counter-revolutionary activities". He was released from the Točak prison in Titova Mitrovica in April 1990.

Vllasi survived the war years and works today as a lawyer, author, and political adviser/consultant. He is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Kosovo (PSDK). In December 2005, Kosovo's prime minister Bajram Kosumi appointed Vllasi as special adviser for negotiations over the final status of Kosovo. Vllasi also served as a political advisor to Kosovo's prime minister Agim Çeku.

Vllasi is married to Nadira Avdić-Vllasi, a Bosniak journalist. They have two children, Adem, a practicing attorney in the United States, and Selma, a medical practitioner who also lives and works in the United States.